Navel Gazing This Moment in Time
by teddybowties
Summary: The Tenth Doctor is with Jack Harkness on an alien subway car. Pregnant, he contemplates things, finally daring to enjoy the time he's been given. Written at Memory Manipulation's request. ONESHOT, MPREG.


Doctor Who fan shortfic by ChellusAuglerie, written by request for Memory Manipulation

warning: tenMPREG/ Jack, then elevenMPREG/jack

Disclaimer: No I don't own them. You know who does. Hats off, you guys.

Navel Gazing (This Moment in Time)

chapter one

I run my hands down my favorite pinstriped suit. Well, not buttoned, that would be stupid, in my condition. Which is why I wear it open, so everyone can see our little miracle for what she is.

Being what I am, I could count every stitch, every point at which the threads deigned to come together in a perfect hem. A good suit is like a good timeline, all tidy little points and sharpness, all smooth pockets and sticky out parts where the sticky out parts ought to be. And it's good to be a Time Lord; TARDII were always brilliant at tailoring, especially now, when I have a passenger. And my TARDIS –is- brilliant, the most beautiful girl in the world. Frankly, I'd buy her diamonds, but she can make them herself. Damn I love my Ship. She knows it, too.

And my Ship loves me. Stop the presses, 'coz I'm in love with a big blue box. The man I made this baby with, on the other hand, well… I'm in love with him too, in a different way. My pretty girl, big blue darling that she is, she loves him, too. Can't wait to play auntie. One thing is for certain, though. I love my unborn child. I love the man I made her with. I love my Ship.

Sometimes everyone loves everyone.

And sometimes the best things in life are different kinds of love.

The three of us, -well, four of us, now,- sometimes I think we know that better than anyone.

"Jack," I say, raising one hand from the barely there lump of hard stomach I'd been cupping for the past four hours, three minutes and twenty six point nine five seven one four six seconds…or, if you have a thing for picoseconds like me, one point four six zero six nine five seven one four six E plus sixteen. At least that's what a human might figure it to. I am a much more accurate calculator.

My lover is asleep still. I tap a finger on the subway car window, then rap a knuckle. I smile like an artist, watching from on high with a horsehair brush and a well-stained palette, considering with windswept eyes full of cupidian motes the man I call Captain Jack –I never sleep except on days ending in kaka del toro- Harkness. Hard to believe that neither moniker, sur or fore, is his real one. He's grown so much into the one he stole. I've known more than he did about that for a while though, and kept it to myself. He probably knows that. He'd known what I was when he'd signed on for the three hour tour, after all, and probably a lot more besides. And now, we're so very near to having a child together, barring any incident.

A snort issues from the nasal cavity of my favorite human male, sudden, precise, and I find occasion to laugh again, glad that he's showing signs of stirring after these long four and some hours of pain he's forced me to spend without his massages.

Wrong blue eyes, pretty pools deep of solitude lined with coy grins dip into me as boyish lashes flutter up and awake. Miles away from sleep now, he looks over at me, then down at my middle, caressing my walking stick body with that pirate gaze of his.

"How do you feel? You all right to stand?"

I have to blink; the question isn't unexpected, so much as a clarification of the facts, a soft bring-me-down back to the here and now.

"The baby is ready, I'm ready. Not gonna go anywhere till she's spitting up on your shirt, you bloody ape," I manage between one gasp and the next. I seem to have lost count.

My exhalation frosts on the window; I touch my fingers to his lips and wet my own, riding through a wave of vertigo as fingers of pain wrap around my swollen womb and slowly constrict, stealing the air from two of my lungs with a resounding cough.

"I was thinking of naming her Manes or Melodia or… Ooh, well that hurts. Something with an M. I like an M. Very post-modern."

I pause, shivering through another burst of pain as Jack tightens his grip on my arm, ever so softly. He's very mindful of my heightened senses, especially now.

The other passengers, some humanoid, some more exotic in appearance, are beginning to steal quick glances our way.

Jack fields it beautifully.

"It's okay. He's in labor. But I think we have this,' he mouths to the Star Poet in the seat behind us. The being nods its silvery blue head, aloof to my discomfort but not nosy enough to stare.

In the seat across the way, suddenly a blue skinned, tentacled overweight Cruxaken shifts uncomfortably, allowing another passenger, also tentacled, to sit beside her.

I nearly pass out when I see who, because the newcomer is an Ood. A single Ood… a single Ood with a Greek letter over his… well it seems reasonable to call it a breast. Looks like a human, save for you know, his head and the fact that he's not.

"Ood… Sigma," I bite out, a smile pressed like dried flowers between my teeth, shuddering as a strange rending sensation perforates my nethers, distracting me from all but Jack's hand in mine, and the face of the Ood I now address. Lights flicker, breaking and dying like fireflies in my skull.

The tentacled mouth swirls, then the eyes latch onto me, those eyes that have held death, they… hold on, to me, to my child. They caress me, nurture my fraying lower nerves with rivers of calm. They carry my child through the glittering flood of gold that is coming, always coming.

"Oh god, oh god, Doctor, " Jack's hand is hot in mine; I dream I am crushing his bones.

The overlarge Cruxaken stands up, her eyes heavy monochromatic orbs of clouded, soupy gray.

"I am a pediatrician! Does he need assistance?"

Jack is frightened… his right, of course, but he thinks I can't tell. As I secretly use the dregs of my strength to wipe some of his tenseness away through our touching, he relaxes. I can feel him turn to the Cruxaken, reply at the ready.

" Oh, that's his use-name, The Doctor. He's a Time Lord. He's just… that is… he says his hips might be too narrow. He's dying, but he'll probably regenerate, so stay out of range until that 's over, okay, ma'am?"

Jack sobs it out through tears of joy as he pulls my pants off; If I had anything left I would comfort him, but now, everything in me is focused on one thing.

Dimness now.

I can scarcely feel the little life wrapped in my own as the rush of gold splays my limbs behind me.

I push, as my body breathes itself away in streamers of artron and light; the flesh reforming to an outline all fresh, all different.

I groan; it's a lot to take, regenerating in the middle of a birth. The child is stuck, see, breech as you like it and head up to the heavens.

The light of redemption finally recedes.

Sounds of quiet clapping can be heard, as though an exceptional film has just been reviewed, a heroic rescue concluded. A miracle witnessed, a grace received, for those who are believers.

"Well now, that wasn't so much to stare at, get a move on! We've still a baby to birth!" I murmur with some mirth, grinning with new lips as Jack wipes sweat from my never seen brow, then rests a hand on my fresh new-fangled thigh.

I look to where the Cruxaken had once given up her seat, but Ood Sigma is gone. The pediatrician is still hovering though. She's holding Jack's beloved blue coat.

"…T-t-t-t-t Time Lord! One has not heard of them in… oh my. The Curse is famous, among us fellow Doctors. You must be beside yourself," she says, busy with everything now that the moment of truth has arrived.

My glued on smile fades slightly with the next stricture of uterine muscle; I have more control over my body than any human, though after the strain of regeneration, one can never be too careful. I have bad luck with them, tend to need a bit of tender loving care to get through. Ah, but the newness carries over as I reach down with my will and turn the child slowly, grunting at the time-consuming need for breath between each rest I'm forced to take. And, every few minutes, a stream of gold blows from my mouth like shiny pollen, gobbling up the distance between its aggregate and parts unknown.

I shove, she leaves me, and then the world goes blank, like a rainy, snow-covered everything with me as the cherry on top.

We've had a full year to imprint on each other, almost since the day of conception, and I honestly don't think she'll mind if I fall asleep now. She's here and healthy.

She's here and healthy.

As I dream, I imagine something with the Cruxaken's jewel-facet face saying, "I think your Time Lord is going to make it. With the one heart stopping, it was touch and go at best, but then, our darling pulled through didn't he? And look what you've both got to show for it, a gorgeous little female subdesignate!"

Jack's voice, now, beaming from somewhere to the left of out of sight as I am carried off the Tellaruce Subway by a rather ginger, fluffy Ursan from the Union of Planetary Bodies of TDHE-B3R, "Yeah. We owe you. Can you, ah, stick around for a few days? He'll probably need some help with her until he's up again, and we both want to thank you personally for helping to deliver the first child of Gallifrey in 61 billion years."

"Sixty one billion? Good Goddess, of course! My second year study group didn't come anywhere –NEAR- this!" comes the reply, in a cloud of quivering blue limbs from the Cruxaken, signaling the end of professional detachment and the beginning of a happy memory –probably a lucrative one- that would be passed to several children and grandchildren.

That said, healing comas are nice. They're even nicer with Jack as a coverlet.

Ah, for the wonders of three days of sleep and a warm lump of impossible human to spend it with.

"I'm good now, Jack," I murmur, eyeing the handsome green-eyed gaze in the mirror as my equally handsome Boekind lover holds it up for me while I root about in the drawers of the Washu-Kun Hotel room our new friend the Cruxaken has insisted on providing.

Jack smiles at my newness, my haleness, running his blue eyes along every line of my freshened flesh.

"You look stunning, gorgeous."

Swallowing, I find, is always the best way to avoid a burgeoning sexual innuendo, whether or not you are capable of rejoinder. And judging by my happy-to-see-me-stick, I truly do –need a moment-.

"Erm, well… you should see the other guy."

I peer at him over the top of the mirror, an ornate thing with thick leafwork and silverish edges that are definitely 20th century shabby chic. The walls of the suite are covered in old black and white stills of Masaki Kajishima's 'Tenchi Muyo!', an old Japanese animation of a boy who fights evil alongside his many female friends, specifically the ancient genius scientist Washu, in keeping with the theme of the Hotel.

"Never been here before…" I say, shoving on a crisp white shirt then a pair of black breeches and boots.

I laugh again as Jack holds up a plethora of ties for my surveyance, drifting along the waters of this moment, my mind pregnant with the pearls of our daughter's possible futures as I lean down and kiss the Time Agent's calloused fingers, which are white on the edge of the soapy-smelling mirror. The door opens as we reset the mirror in its place between the two armoires, their curls of pale Venusian fruitwood sinuous and taut against the fresh cream wall. It's a very large piece, our exquisite floor mirror. We've adopted it now. Jack might steal it, but I hope not. I don't particularly want our hostess to run afoul of the law; hotels on Tellaruce are notoriously friendly… they might make us a gift of the mirror, throw us a seven year party, and tie it all up with a 75 percent off coupon for Almost Beef World, and believe you me, gracious as it may sound to the unwashed innocent, none of us want that.

I straighten my bowtie; Jack's laughter is snickering out from somewhere as I tie it in place around my neck.

"My love," he sighs finally, emerging from his safe zone behind the door, "…it's really quite adorable. You look like some archaeologist's five year old son, trying to play professor. Come here, you!"

His fingers grope for me. Soon, every finger he has – and some he doesn't- are tangling in my hair. Yes, I do mean all of my hair, not just that floppy mess on my head. Don't have much, but Jack doesn't take long to find it. In other words, I'm out of my shirt again. His hand is down my pants, playing with my toys.

My laughter fills the room; in the special smart! pram beside the bed, our newborn girl-child is staring intently at us. I can't hold up under the onslaught for long, so I wriggle free of Davey Jones -and his Locker-, then go to her, baring a swollen red nipple to the soft light of the early morning room lamps.

"Is this what you wanted, my little rice pudding? Oh yes I know it is, yes I do!" I coo, bending down to blow on that tiny belly, my brains caked in glee before I lift her small weight and offering up my bare chest in sacrifice to the Goddess.

She takes the sturdy teat into the whole of her tiny little mouth, inspecting me with her gums, her soft tongue, the exquisite miniature landscape of her baby- throat. I slacken the bumpy skin, just enough for her not yet hardened oral ridges to fit around me without rubbing her too hard and hurting her, and then… I relax. Satisfied for the moment, my little girl begins to suckle. The sensation is strange and wonderful, all soft nipping and pulling and pumping and draining. I can feel my lactation swell me further as she darts her little tongue over the rougher patches where the fluid excretes. Soon the milk is running down her throat, filling her acorn-sized stomach.

I sway with it, holding her and breathing to that most ancient of rhythms. Everything drifts away, except my baby, and my self.

Molly, I think, as I inhale the clean, natural sugar of her skin.

Yes.

Molly.

Misinterpreting, Jack clambers over the bed to me, placing concerned, probing hands on my head and my shoulder.

But it's all right. Certain motions can be hypnotic, relaxing. I tell him so. He remembers when he knew it firsthand, too.

My lover retracts his fear, and everything is right again.

"Kerylis, our favorite Cruxaken, is coming to fetch us for the gratuity vacation tour in a few," he says, holding up a cell phone…thing and waving it as it buzzes softly, "I told her we'd be down in fifteen. Does our pumpkin know her name yet?"

I tell him her name. His beauty, his sweet , proud smile as he grins at me and our daughter, it lights my world. We undress.

Trying for doubles is fun.

Afterward, we wash, and re-don our clothing, I in my bowtie and tweed, Jack in his suspenders and blue shirt and coat.

I confirm it to him as I tie up the laces of my good stout boots.

In a year or so I will give birth to twins.

Jack's hand finds its way to my floppy hair, and I smile at the gentleness in him.

Things are better now. We are, too.

Molly is back in her pram after a second, later feeding, sleeping to the songs of star whales. Funny how quickly it goes by, really. Time. Experience. Sense of self.

I push the pram with her in it toward the walk-in closet. The TARDIS gleams out at me blue as sunshine from the closet's double doors and opens up, ready to take her. No one here on Tellaruce or anywhere else can see my Ship if she doesn't wish it. Besides, she'll never allow anyone short of me or Jack to come anywhere near her new niece –excepting any of my former companions, of course-, so we feel it is quite safe for myself, Jack and our new friend to take a bit of a vacation here on Tellaruce. She doesn't know it yet, but she will soon be offered a permanent position as our personal physician… and just in time for the second round.

Life is good to us, sometimes.

FIN


End file.
